Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Two More Pearls

I forgot two notable encounters from our delightful hike yesterday, which I will recount here now, but first, even though a couple mornings have begun poorly, the days have only shot up into the stratosphere of awesomeness as time has counted on. Today was no exception, but today's awesomeness cannot be confined to pearlescent anecdotes, even large, exotic, Tahitian pearls. Today's awesomeness was more along the lines of the Dom Pedro Aquamarine, and will need to be digested (mixed metaphor) before I can give it its full due.

But from yesterday:

As we arrived in Vila das Pombas yesterday, we saw two young adults riding horses along the edge of the narrow, cobbled, shoreline road. The young man was clearly Cabo Verdean, but the young woman looked European, and I assumed she was a tourist on a guided ride. Later, as we were making our way up the ribeira, we saw the riders again. The young man was still in front, but both were appropriately attired, English-style, with tall boots (although helmet-less) and the horses had English tack. We said hello as they passed and I held up my camera and asked "Posso?" The young man smiled and nodded, then gestured to Shadow on my ankle and asked in return, laughing, "You like horses?" Two notable things: he recognized a horse tattooed on my ankle from several meters away across the street, and he spoke to me in English, not French, as is almost universal here. Shadow, you now have an international reputation! (later, we saw the young woman untacking and cleaning her horse, in a narrow garage on a mountainside, clearly comfortable. Mysterious!)

Later, as we were heading down the narrow thoroughfare, an elderly man stopped us and asked Ian, jokingly, for his hat. The elderly man proceeded to doff his own light-colored baseball cap, revealing a balding pate. "Não, não," I replied, "ele precise!" I pulled off Ian's hat to demonstrate his own balding pate, and how he needed his hat, young though he is. The man nodded, but then, still laughing, pointed to my own hat. "Não!" I said again. "Preciso também!" I pulled off my own hat, and showed him, laughing myself, my own balding pate. We all laughed at that, and shaking his head, the man continued on his way, clearly bested.

Only two more days here, but we've heard that São Nicolau, where we spend our next full week, is Santo Antão's sibling amongst the islands, so we're thinking we'll enjoy it.